God Has Great Plans for Us

A sermon preached by the Rev. Terence L. Elsberry, Rector, at St. Matthew's Church, Bedford, New York, on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year C, May 2, 2004.

Click here to return to main Sermons page.

I

When we look at these three scripture lessons this morning, we see a single theme that ties them all together. The theme is, actually, the theme of the Bible itself. Simply put, that theme can be stated in just six words: God has great plans for us.

II

My friend Linda de Menocal said she and Dan attended Mel Gibson's movie “The Passion of the Christ.” One comment Linda made about the movie was, I thought, very telling. She said: “I felt the movie would have been much more effective seen as the middle part of a trilogy. We need to remember the crucifixion, of course. But to truly understand the meaning and relevance of the crucifixion, we need to see it in context. In order to do that, we need to understand what came before, the preparation for the crucifixion. And that is Jesus' life and ministry and teachings. Then we need to see what came after: the resurrection and how Jesus' being raised from the dead changed the disciples and led them to found the Church.”

What Linda said is right, of course. To fully understand any of these great three activities of God in Christ – Jesus' earthly ministry, His crucifixion, and His resurrection, we need to see each of them in the context of the other two.

Because when we do that, we see God had this magnificent plan in mind. This plan by which He used Jesus to bring salvation to the world.

The Father God used Jesus, and Jesus allowed Himself, offered Himself, for the carrying out of this glorious plan because of the great love God has for us, His people, and because He has great plans for us.

We see His ultimate plan in this morning's vivid picture of what heaven is like. In this magnificent vision we see God on one throne and seated beside Him Jesus (called here “the Lamb”) and great multitudes of people from every nation on earth, waving palm branches, dressed in white, and crying out praises to God the Father and God the Son.

And here's God's plan for us, on an eternal basis. We read how He will take care of us:

“And the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Look at that. Look at how God is going to take care of you in heaven. We lose someone we love, and sometimes our hearts are broken, because we miss them so desperately. But don't worry for the one you've lost. Because look at how God is taking care of your beloved. And that's how He'll be caring for you and me one day. God has great plans for us – in the eternal sense.

But He also has great plans for us now, in this world. Jesus in the Gospel reading tells the people gathered outside the Temple door that anyone who follows Him will be taken care of. “No one will snatch them out of my hand.”

I remember walking down the crowded street of my hometown. I was little, five or six years old. The street was crowded, jammed with people because it was the Fourth of July and we'd come to see the parade. I started running ahead, and I felt this tug on the back of my collar. My dad had a hold of my shirt and he wasn't about to let go. I was his little boy, his son, and he would not let me run into the street, or get lost in the crowd, or get shoved aside or stepped on or hurt. Because I belonged to him and he had plans for me.

You belong to the living Christ, and he has plans for you.

Nancy and I saw the Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry's magnificent play, “A Raisin in the Sun.”

You may not be impressed by Sean (P. Diddy, Puff Daddy) Combs playing the role of the son, made famous by Sidney Poitier. But he did just fine, and the three female performers were magnificent. The play, first produced in 1959, is also still magnificent. It tells the story of three generations of a poor African-American family who live all together in a tiny apartment. Each has a dream of what would constitute a better life. Their dreams seem near realization with the arrival of their dead father's insurance check.

The mother, to whom the check is made out, spends part of the money on buying a house for the family, so they can get out of the tiny apartment. The rest of the money she gives her son (played by Sean Combs) so he can realize his dream of investing in a liquor store and becoming an entrepreneur instead of a chauffeur.

Disaster strikes. His contact man makes off with the money, the lion's share of the insurance, and a representative of the new neighborhood comes trying to buy them out, because the neighborhood is white, and it's 1959. Mama, the matriarch of the family, turns down the offer: “We're moving anyway.”

The Combs character, Walter, says they should accept the neighborhood's offer. It will help make up for the money he's lost.

His younger sister, who is enraged at her brother for what she sees as throwing away the money, heaps abuse on him. He returns her venom.

Mama, hearing this, is heartbroken. She says, “Death done come in this here house. Done come walking on the lips of my children. You what supposed to be my beginning again. You – what supposed to be my harvest.”

You and I are God's harvest! We are His harvest. We are the culmination of His plans for the world. We are why, His Father's heart breaking with love for us, He sent His Son to the cross … and why His Son went.

How lightly we sometimes take this incredible sacrifice, this remarkable love He has for us.

How can He love us that much? How can we fathom a love like that? Finally, how are we to respond to a love like that?

Mama, the character in “A Raisin in the Sun,” shows us a way.

Sister: He's no brother of mine.

Mama: What you say?

Sister: I said that that individual in that room is no brother of mine.

Mama: That what I thought you said. You feeling like you better than he is today? (Sister does not answer) Yes? What you tell him a minute ago? You done wrote his epitaph too – like the rest of the world? Well, who give you the privilege?

Sister: Be on my side for once! You saw what he just did, Mama! You saw him – down on his knees. Wasn't it you who taught me to despise any man who would do that? Do what he's going to do?

Mama: Yes – I taught you that. Me and your daddy. But I thought I taught you something else too … I thought I taught you to love him.

Sister: Love him? There is nothing left to love.

Mama: There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. (Looking at her) Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and for the family ‘cause we lost the money. I mean for him: what he been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning – because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself ‘cause the world done whipped him so! When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valley he come through before he got to wherever he is.

III

God's plan is a play in three parts. Jesus came into the world to show us what God is like. He died in our place, so that believing in Him, we can come into fellowship with Him. He rose from the dead, so we may have power to live victorious lives now and live with Him forever.

Hear the words of Paul in today's reading from Acts: “We bring you the good news that what God promised to our ancestors he has fulfilled for us their children, by raising Jesus.”

We are His children and He has done all this for us.

What does He expect of us in return? Simply that we do what Mama says: love Him and love each other.

God has great plans for us.